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Tell Me Why I Should Like This Show

I am so grateful that my kids are past the age of Dora the Explorer andCaillou.

They moved on to shows that I actually enjoy,

Such as My Little Pony: Friendship is MagicandAvatar: The Last Airbender.

But noooooo, my kids had to move on again from that awesomeness to this:

My kids are obsessed with this show now. Obsessed! Shouldn’t Pokémon have died out like 20 years ago or something? Anyway, I need your help. I won’t watch the show because it sounds obnoxious and stupid. Yet, somehow I feel like I’m missing some sort of bonding opportunity with my kids.

Convince me why I should like this show. Why do I “gotta catch ’em all!”

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53 thoughts on “Tell Me Why I Should Like This Show”

Um, how old are your kids? Then again, I know some adults who love the show. At least it’s not Yu-Gi-Oh or anything. I hope that’s still not a thing. Well, I also hoped that Pokemon isn’t a thing.

Honestly, if I had kids, and they liked something bad, I’d talk all the time about how slightly younger kids love the show too. If that didn’t get them disinterested, then I’d find good cartoons for them and pretend that I didn’t want them to watch them. “No, no, kids, you should never watch episodes of the old show Batman: The Animated Series! You wouldn’t like it! It’s got violence and Batman and stuff!”

I asked my son recently if he had played Pokemon when he was little (I honestly couldn’t remember). He said no, it was popular at his school, but he never got into it. He then said, “And you know there are a lot of Christian families that wouldn’t let their kids play it.” (and he rolled his eyes, heh) It’s funny to see how the same Christian vs. D&D arguments that were big in my day, have come back around with Harry Potter, and apparently even Pokemon.

My son’s favorite shows when he was really little were Lamb Chop (Shari Lewis), and Thomas the Tank Engine. I thought those were pretty good.

My nieces and nephews at that age, however, absolutely loved Barney & Friends. Now THAT was an agonizing show to watch as an adult. That giggly laugh… that insipid “I LUV U” song… guuuhhhh. I was very glad when that era ended.

I had to watch Barney when I was a kid at daycare (late elementary). It was AWFUL. Why, Brent, WHY did you have to bring it up? I’m traumatized! LOL. Now I have, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me to.” Aggggggghhhhhh!

Lamp Chop? Is that the one where they sing, “This is the song that never ends…yes, it goes on and on my friends…some people started signing it, not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it forever, just because…”?

My son used to like Thomas. I’m a little sad that he doesn’t any more because it was a good show.

The Electric Company (Don’t know if reruns are available, but worth it if they are)
Other old PBS shows to watch if you can find them are Between the Lions and Square One TV.
Bill Nye the Science Guy (reruns available on Netflix right now).

My kids got into Pokemon late, as teenagers. But it’s not the cartoon that they are into, it’s the video games.

They each have a Nintendo 3DS (that they bought themselves), and they play Pokemon quite a lot. I see them discussing strategy, and it seems to call for learning the game rules, and then doing a lot of thinking about strategy. Since it makes them think, I don’t really have a problem with it. But they know that I don’t understand what they’re talking about when they discuss it, and we all realize that this is something I’m not going to share with them.

(Love MLP and Avatar. And The Tick, although I think the humor more for adults than it is for kids. Sort of the way Bullwinkle was when I was a kid.)

I asked my daughter why kids might be into the cartoon. She said it’s a high-energy action show full of cute and/or awesome animals shooting each other with fire and stuff in a non-lethal way, and then they get to play with those pets afterwards.

It might just be one of those things that’s awesome when you are a kid, but doesn’t hold up later. Some shows I loved, I go back now and just cringe when I see them. I tried to go back and watch the original Battlestar Galactica recently. Eeurrgh. It might be worth a whole blog post about that experience.

I did see the Battlestar reboot. It had a lot of potential, and good production values, but it reminded me of Lost, in that the writers acted like there was a grand overarching plan that we would see work itself out, and then that wasn’t what happened at all. It was more like the writers hadn’t thought at all about where things were going past the season they were working on. It would have been hugely improved by a writer who can plan out the whole multi-year plot from the beginning (someone like J.K. Rowling.)